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excuse to use it.
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It's 3:04 in the afternoon when I get the phone call from NYU that my check for two years of back pay will be ready on Monday. I'm waiting for the bus so I can rush home and finish calculating midterm grades. I am exhausted and cranky.

And I get the call.

I feel exhilarated at first. I'm finally getting the money that I had all but given up on. I think of who I can call. And the list comes down to two people.

Still I'm excited.

By 9 that night I have dissolved into tears. Sure, it was a really stressful day. Yeah I was suffering from sleep deprivation. But mainly it comes down to the fact that I had no one to share the good news with. No one to come home to and announce hey we, WE are getting this money.

But the only we is my cat and I.

No one can come out and celebrate. It's me. On my own.

So I call Mr Nyquil and Sawdust. Even he doesn't pick up. I leave a message. I get dressed in one of my glittery tops and do the serious eye treatment.

I don't want to do this, but it becomes a question of what I want less. I can stay at home and be depressed or I can go out and drink and for a short period of time blot out that depression. It's about short term solutions. Because in the pit of depression you can only see solutions in the short term. The solution has to be in this drink, this blog post, this book because you don't have the energy to go much farther so the solution has to be close. It has to be within arm's length.

There's no one I know at the bar and no likely candidates for my company. I settle down to a vodka and tonic. I look around the bar and think, "If I'd gone to that 30 single meetup down in the financial district I could be having a bad time in a completely different bar." I decide I prefer the familiar setting.

This is the power of positive thinking.

Nyquil calls and says he'll meet me in 20 minutes. I sit by the bar and drink and wait.

The guy who stood me up before Christmas comes in, he kisses me on the cheek before I know what's happening. Like Nyquil, he's a tall black man. At first I think he's my date. It takes me a minute to realize what is going on. Great, I think, dueling dates.

Which a year ago or more, I would have loved. The impending drama. Another Bunni bar story. But I've already been there too many times. I'll wake up tomorrow thinking what have I done? Well, as soon as I stop throwing up and my mind can do more than form vowel sounds.

Because it's not about sex anymore.

When Eric left, it WAS about sex. I would go down on anything and the Titanic. The worst part was that I was totally inorgasmic. For months. But still I slept with men, seduced men, because it wasn't about pleasure, it was about needing the reassurance that I was attractive. Now it's not that simple. I know that if I start playing limbo with my standards I can haul somebody home. There are any number of candidates in this bar not to mention men who have been dying for me to exploit them the last few months. But it's not what I want. What I need now is reassurance that I'm lovable, which considering my mother's behavior as well as well every man in my life with whom I have anything vaguely resembling an emotional connection is the one thing I can't find. And of course, I feel about as attractive as an old boot on the side of the highway smelling of fermented dog spit. And taking home some random moron and just hope that he can figure out how to give me pleasure, well, it's not going to make me feel less boot-like. It's just going to make me think I've found a dog that's not too finicky about what boot he chews on. Which are the only kind of dogs that come my way. The others are home in nice houses or sitting well trained in the laps of women who have an entire closet full of doggy clothes.

Finally after about an hour and a half Nyquil shows up. By this time, some guy has bought me a Long Island Iced Tea. I'm well on my way to being drunk. Hey he's the one who showed over an hour late."So what did you think of me when we first met?" He asks me. I have no idea what to tell him. I thought he was pedestrian and boring then and my mind hasn't changed. Essentially, he's lucky to be an actor because he isn't going to say anything interesting unless he's reading someone else's words.

And I'm not applying for permanent scriptwriter.

He tries to talk his way into my apartment in a wearisome way. He just wants to be somewhere quiet where we can talk. He'll give me a shoulder rub. Nothing will happen.

Honey, even drunk I'm not that stupid. In fact, I don't think there's enough desperation and liquor in the bar for me to consider this option.

I send him home. He doesn't call me later. And wake up thinking, "The bad news is that you still feel sad and depressed. The good news is you feel less sad and depressed than if you had taken that moron to bed."